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The winter holidays had been actually rather horrible for Zia. There may have been over a dozen Piselli children, but that didn’t make the blow any less harsh. It just meant that there were more people clumped together in a weird mood. It led to a lot more wine-drinking, that was for sure, and some of them got weepy and some nostalgic and some downright pathetic. They tried keeping their spirits up, more or less, but it wasn’t easy this time of year.

So when she was able to return to Hogwarts Zia was actually thankful. She had once been so excited about these holidays with her family in their beautiful Italian home. The house was still beautiful and Italian but it hardly felt like home at all. It didn’t help that Zia barely felt like herself these days. She felt lost and insecure and unmotivated.

Nico had probably done the best at trying to cheer Zia up. He only had a few people who he could be ‘big brother to’ and Zia was one of the lucky ones. Still, he was only a few years older, so his advice-giving mostly consisted of ways of sneaking gillyweed and alcohol into Hogwarts. They’d also smoked a few times over the break.

Zia had been able to bring some more wine through the techniques that Nico had shared with her. She hadn’t even been nervous about it, honestly. Back in the day that would have caused her serious anxiety, she’d be giggling and shifty-eyed and totally give it away. This time, though, she had nearly forgotten she had the contraband on her.

She had come with a decent amount so she found herself out in the freezing cold weather, which actually felt good on her face. That sharp iciness cut through the numbness throughout her body. Unfortunately the hail was too much, and that’s how Zia found herself in the Armor Gallery, right near the abandoned corridor. It was a pretty good spot, she thought.

It was late, so she set her things down quietly, unscrewed her cap slowly so it wouldn’t make too much noise, and drank a few long sips straight from the bottle. One of Ronaldo’s most innovative business moves was creating the everlasting wine bottle. It was a charm, really, and wasn’t everlasting - it refilled 5 times. Pretty useful for trying to sneak it into school..

Nicholas ducked into the armor gallery, he'd been on his way out and then to an empty classroom once he saw the weather, trying to get a cigarette in before bed.  Or maybe some gillyweed as well.  He'd been trying to decide when he heard footsteps around the corner and had to make a quiet detour into the gallery.  It wasn't his favorite corridor, he always found the suits of armor a little eerie at night.  And he never knew if peeves or one of the other ghosts was hiding in the suits.  Or prefects behind them.   One never knew.

Seeing movement down the corridor made him jump nearly out of his skin, though he was at least quiet about it.  Even if his heart wasn't, he knew it wasn't as loud in the room as it was in his ears.

It looked like someone was taking a drink of something straight from a bottle, but he couldn't tell who.  He heard the footsteps stop and then start receding, the hallways going quiet again.  He walked quietly toward the figure in the low light.  "You couldn't have picked a less creepy place in the school to drink?"  He said quietly as he pulled out a cigarette.  If he got caught, at least he wouldn't be in detention alone. 

He lit the cigarette with his wand as he got close enough to finally recognize who the shadow was.  He wouldn't have expected to find Zia drinking alone in the Armory.

By the time Bevans interrupted Zia’s scene, she had already helped herself to nearly half the bottle. At first she’d been drinking mainly to warm herself back up, but once she got comfortable she was wandering around the gallery, drinking every time she decided she’d seen something worth drinking about. Suddenly she was interrupted and that made her jump -- had one of the knights come to life!? That wasn’t an unlikely thing to happen here. She scooted around the corner to see who it was.

“Bevaaaaaaans,” Zia droned, walking lazily over to her classmate. He was smoking - probably gillyweed if she knew him, and that sounded good, so she plucked it from his lips once he’d had a drag and handed him the wine bottle. “Shouldn’ you be doing homework or something?” The over-emphasis was a combination of Zia trying to be sarcastic and her alcohol intake.

If Nicholas was surprised by Zia drinking he was even more surprised by her taking his cigarette.  He was glad that it was a normal cigarette and not gillyweed or anything else.  Given that half the bottle now in his hand was gone it was for the best that it wasn't going to have any other mind altering effects for the Ravenclaw.

"Shouldn't you be?"  He took a large drink from the bottle.  Wine wasn't his favorite but he rarely turned down a bottle of anything.

"Whats the occasion?"  Nicholas asked, making sure to keep a firm grip on the bottle.  The last thing either of them needed was a drunken grab for the bottle resulting in a loud crash of broken glass.  And he wasn't sure if Zia wouldn't just grab the bottle like she had his cigarette.

“I’m disappointed, Bevans,” Zia told him after blowing out the smoke from her mouth. The cigarette made her feel light-headed and airy. “This isn’t going to get us very brasato*.” Her classmate was known for partaking in the wacky tobaccy. Lately these substances were what felt best. Judging her classmates’ reactions this was surprising, but to Zia nothing was surprising anymore.

“Shouldn’t you be?... What’s the occasion?”

Zia shrugged these questions off, taking back her bottle and drinking in one swift motion. “Just thinking of home,” she responded vaguely. She twisted the bottle around until the label showed, branded with her last name and featuring a watercolor picture of her brother’s vineyard. “Italian wine.” She added this explanation to support her excuse for drinking.


*brasato: stoned (Italian slang)

Nicholas laughed at Zia's reaction.  He had no idea what brasato meant.  But he could guess.  And then she did the one thing he'd been expecting and took the bottle back.  Thankfully without making a mess.  Or dropping the bottle and bringing every prefect down on then.

He had known that Zia had lost someone when the Leaky Cauldron exploded but until her comment about thinking about home, he hadn't remembered the fact.  He hadn't lost anyone, that he knew of anyways.  The benefit in these circumstances of having a muggle mother.  She hadn't been anywhere near the Leaky Cauldron.  It had been surreal of course going to Diagon Alley over the holidays but beyond that, he hadn't been personally effected.

"You know, I probably shouldn't but..." He trailed off.  He pulled a sunglasses case out of his pocket. If it was opened by anyone else, or he tried to open it without his wand on him, all that was inside were sunglasses.  As long as he had his wand on him when he opened it though, the case was filled with rolling papers, gillyweed, weed, the random billywig sting, and any other magical substance he was experimenting with.  He'd managed to enchant the thing himself, it wasn't perfect by any means but it worked well enough.

Nicholas glanced up once more at Zia, trying to decide what would be best at the moment.  He pulled out an already rolled gillyweed joint.  He sealed the case back up and shoved it back into his pocket before lighting the joint with his wand.  "Here try this, it'll help you relax and feel better...without the hangover." He took a quick drag off the joint before holding it out to the Ravenclaw.

When she moved, Zia was gliding -- or at least that’s what it felt like. She was swaying, blinking very slowly so her eyes stayed closed longer than they were open, matching the air, wishing she could float on the breeze. There was no breeze, this was some abandoned corridor in the heart of a castle, but that small technicality hardly mattered after a few glasses of wine.

“I know I probably shouldn’t, but…”

This peaked Zia’s interest immediately. Her focus was back on Bevans, who was now digging through what looked like a glasses case. She didn’t know that Bevans cared so much about protecting his sunglasses, and she tried taking a peek to see if they were something special, gave you better hallway vision or something. After a moment she understood. He was holding up a different type of rolled cigarette, the one that she’d been expecting.

"Here try this, it'll help you relax and feel better...without the hangover."

At this comment she raised her eyebrows. “Okay big brother,” she joked automatically, not considering the statement until she’d already said it. She made her best attempt to laugh it off, looking around the room for anything else to talk about.

“Let’s go over here,” she said,  pulling on Bevans' arm and moving towards the corner of the room, where there was a small window. Silhouetted by the night sky, she practically glowed, her giant head of hair shiny and lately she’d been paler, skinnier, less day-glo. She kicked off her shoes, put the wine on the desk in the corner, and climbed up on top. While he started the joint, she crawled to the corner of the desk pushed up against the corner, making sure she looked good while doing it.

Sliding the wine closer, she patted the desk that had now become a seat. It was her turn so she took her hits quickly, before she had the chance to cough, then blew the smoke out of the window. It slowly rose up in the night sky, the smoke rising like a lost balloon.

“Smoke looks so cool,” she commented nonchalantly. She watched the smoke billow and dissipate. She turned to her fellow smoker. “Doesn’t it?” She drank a little more wine, and now there was just a bit left at the bottom. That she wouldn't drink; she would replace the bottle with more wine, other wine maybe. But if this bottle were ever to empty, it would disappear. Supposedly this was more convenient for the customer, but Zia planned to keep this bottle. It was special. She easily re-corked the bottle, having spent much of her vacation time helping at the winery.

Nicholas smiled awkwardly at the big brother comment.   It was obviously a drunk slip up.  Or at least seemed to be.  He didn't figure given he knew that she was in the mood for another brother.  Or maybe she was.  Grief was weird.  He was suddenly thankful for his small family.  Less opportunity for tragedy and overall less of them.

Then she was pulling him over to the window.  And he let her, no sense fighting the drunk girl.  That never led anywhere good.  Best to go along with it.  He narrowly avoided getting hit by shoes as they were kicked off.  He tried not to laugh as she positioned herself on the desk.  It was hard not to see the alcohol at play in her movements.  He felt sorry for her, he was pretty sure she was going to have a hell of a hangover in the morning.

“Smoke looks so cool. Doesn’t it?”

He shrugged as he put the cigarette out on the window sill, putting out the cigarette that he had started with.  He pulled his wand and made the cigarette butt and ashes vanish.  First rule of not getting caught, leave nothing behind.  The vanishing spells were very useful.  He pointed his wand at the smoke and the cloud gathered into the shape of a dragon.  Which then let out smoke flames that slowly dissolved the figure from the bottom as it used up the smoke in its form.

Nicholas watched Zia re-cork the bottle.  There wasn't much left but she wasn't offering it to him and he wasn't about to suggest she drink anymore.  He had no issue with partying or getting drunk but she seemed pretty far gone and at least in his estimation she wasn't partying so much as trying to forget.

"I've always liked this spell."  He said as the figure finally disappeared in one last smoke flame.  He plucked the joint from her fingers and took a long drag on it.  Holding the smoke in for the best effect before letting out.  With another swipe of his wand, the smoke turned into a flock of tiny smoke birds that took off out the window.

Zia stared in amazement as dragons billowed through the starry night, then smiled wide-eyed as Bevans told her it was a spell he liked. "That's wonderful," she said a little dreamily, but she meant it earnestly, because the spell really had been a unique one. Zia had been around smokers long before she ever tried her first cigarette or spliff, and she had never seen anything like that. He followed up the dragon show with a flock of smoky birds, which made Zia's face light up. She turned to him excitedly, in a child-like way, as if she was checking to see if he saw it too.

She pinched the joint between her fingers and took her turn. "So, Nicholas," she said in what she considered to be a very Proper voice. Her Italian accent was thicker with the combination of the fancy talk and alcohol intake. "What do you like to do when you're brasato?" She used the Italian slang for stoned. She passed the j back to him, feeling the first wave of cotton-mouthed thirst. She took a moment to finagle herself a cup of water before adding, "Have you done anything off the bucket list?"

Nicholas smiled at the compliment.  It truly was one of his favorite spells.  And it had helped get pants off on a couple of occasions.  And given the way things were going he could probably end up turning the night into one of those occasions.  But he also wasn't one to take advantage of drunk girls. Or guys.  Or emotionally screwed up ones.  Right now it seemed like Zia fell into both categories.  He felt bad for her.  But given the way his cousin had reacted when told that kinda thing, he doubted it would help.  It would probably just make everything worse.  And that helped no one.

"What does brasato mean exactly?"  He took the joint back and took a long drag and held it in for a moment blowing it up toward the ceiling.  Nicholas didn't transform the cloud into anything and it just thinned out into the air.  "I've done a few.  Skinny dipping was fun.  The shrinkage was not."  He chuckled. He remember much to his surprise at the time, but Zia had been one of the few to strip down to nothing with him.  Not that keeping your underwear on did much good when they were wet and stuck to you like a second skin.  But it was still cheating.

 He held up the joint and took a quick drag.  "And I got this into the school.  I'm trying to get my hand on a Donovan arse."  And keep it, he said to himself. 

"Why you want to go skinny dipping again?"  Nicholas figured the cold water might help.  Or kill them.

“What does brasato mean exactly?

Zia wasn’t always very hip to English slang, despite going to a school full of teenagers speaking it. She was more inclined to use the Italian slang that her older siblings all used, which felt like a secret code from their traditional parents. “Oh… stoned?” Zia guessed that this was a colloquialism that Bevans might be more familiar with. She gestured to the joint they were sharing, then made a dramatic inhaling noise and did a floaty little dance to enhance her explanation.

While Bevans spent his time with the joint, explaining about the shrinkage that the skinny-dipping had incited, Zia watched his profile, the way his nose dipped down and his lips pursed. She was vaguely listening to what he was saying; she recalled the skinny-dipping incident, where she’d been one of the few to get totally bare, having not really realized how shy she was supposed to be about her body.

“Why, you want to go skinny-dipping again?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to cause you any further shrinkage,” Zia teased, flashing a knowing smile. “I think there might be some other things on the list worth giving a go.” To be honest Zia forgot what the details of the bucket list were. It was a good distraction though, and the overall message had been to get into some trouble, something Zia hadn’t truly done in the past six years she’d been at the school. “I did eat an entire cheesecake with Eli though,  so you’re gonna have to find someone else to do that one with you.” She flipped some pinkish hair out of her eyes and set them on Bevans holding the joint to his lips.

"I'm not sure that it counts as eating an entire cheesecake if you eat it with someone else." Nicholas said.  He was starting to feel the effects of the joint.  And a cheesecake was sounding quite delicious now.

"I don't think shrinkage is what you should worry about causing."  Nor was he apparently worrying about caution.  Or paying attention to their surroundings. "Though, we've both already smuggled fun things into the castle. How many points is that worth?  And do I get points for each substance.  Because if that's the case I've already won."

Of course there was still the holy grail, "Or we could try for Storm's office.  We'd both be on top then."  He grinned at her, "Well only one of us at a time really."

"I'm not sure that it counts as eating an entire cheesecake if you eat it with someone else."

“There were two cheesecakes,” Zia shared, and couldn’t help but laugh at the memory. “I like sweets.” It was absolutely true. Zia had a sugar tolerance that was unparalleled. That night had been fueled by sugar, pink wine and laughter. She looked at Bevans and covered her mouth, trying not to giggle too loudly.

"I don't think shrinkage is what you should worry about causing." 

Zia smiled behind her fingers that still covered her mouth. She moved them to her hair, which she twirled. Her eyes lit up at the innuendo, which she took as a compliment. It was always a compliment, wasn’t it, when a guy made implications like this? Zia didn’t totally know how to take the comment so she just kept smiling.

"Or we could try for Storm's office.  We'd both be on top then."  He grinned at her, "Well only one of us at a time really."

At this suggestion Zia’s jaw dropped for a moment. She was too shocked at the mere suggestion that they do something so risky. She playfully hit Nicholas’ shoulder and then kept her hand there. He was pretty warm, and she was next to the window that blew in cold air.

“Let’s start a little smaller, maybe,” Zia blushed, feeling a lot like a goody-goody. She was getting into a lot more trouble this year, but nothing so drastic. She was pretty afraid of Professor Storm, who intimidated her out of taking Defense Against the Dark Arts any longer than she had to.

“Like maybe an empty classroom?” She moved so she was facing Bevans, eyes sparkly. Right now she was thinking more in-the-moment, but she still associated Storm with detention, which she barely ever had. Zia moved closer still, sitting on her legs with her knee touching his. She bounced so her knee touched his hip instead, and his arm was almost around her waist.

"Nothing wrong with enjoying something sweet." Nicholas grinned.  Though perhaps eating a whole cheesecake in one sitting was a little much.  Probably should at least be spread out over two sittings.  Some things were better when you got them a second, or third, or fourth time.

He laughed at her reaction, and the light hit.  If she found that shocking this would be too much fun.  And despite the chill of her hand, he leaned in, "There's nothing smaller about it."  He had a mischievous glint in his eye. Or maybe he was just high.  It wasn't easy to tell with the mix of hormones and gillyweed.

He stood up, and held a hand out to help her up.  "Empty classroom?  Not nearly as fun, but it'll do.  And better to move before someone comes by."

Time and existence stopped as she followed Bevans off the table. She used his hand to propel herself forward with a little skip, until she was ahead of him, pulling him into a dark corner of the room. Zia was glad none of the other Pisellis were at Hogwarts to criticize her behavior. Now the school was her domain and she did not have to share a single detail about how she was handling herself.

Zia smirked in a way that showed she knew what was about to happen, her inquisitive eyes big and bright in the dark room. Everything else was a blur, and the thought of Nicholas Bevans filled up her mind just as it filled her view.

Looping her fingers through his belt loops, Zia closed the gap between them. She took only a moment to inhale Bevans’ smoky aroma before pushing her lips against his.